


Alushtas's Tale

by my_gender_is_5_bucks_and_a_d20



Series: Alushtas [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Other, Stealing, Thievery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_gender_is_5_bucks_and_a_d20/pseuds/my_gender_is_5_bucks_and_a_d20
Summary: Alushtas explains how they got their magical boots to a mysterious thief.
Series: Alushtas [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088585
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Alushtas's Tale

**1**

“So,” the man (or so he appeared; His face was in shadow, but from the way he dressed and spoke, I could only assume as much) said, his voice coarse but calm, “how did you get those fine boots you are wearing?” I blinked, stunned.

“Is that _really_ the question you have to ask me?” I asked.

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“You know, there are a lot of other interesting things about me. Like how my hair changes colors, or how I’m one of the few androgynous elves, or all of the people I’ve stolen from?”

“Wait, your hair changes color?” he asked, disbelieving. I squinted at him, confused.

“You didn’t do any research on me, did you?”

“Of course I did! You… you were one of Danshu’s thieves for a while!” he cried victoriously.

“Well, yeah, but everyone in the underworld knows that. That was my first thieving job, and that fiasco with the mayor’s magical necklace made sure that I was a laughingstock for years.

“Oh, and also, by ‘the underworld’, I mean criminals, not the Underdark.”

“I knew that!” he said indignantly, pacing back and forth across the room. He must’ve gotten tired of the darkness or something, because he strode over to the window and tore open the curtains. When he turned back to me, I realized that he was using magic to distort his appearance, though I could tell some things. He was tall, probably half a foot taller than me, sturdily built, though not buff, and wearing all black.

“Sure you did,” I told him sarcastically, “and anyway, why do you care about the boots?”

“Well” --he paused to think, then started pacing again (he really seemed to like pacing, I’m not sure why) -- ”There are some people who want to know. You aren’t in any trouble, don’t worry - they just need to know how you got them. Considering how little I know about you, I’d think it was pretty obvious that I’m not the only one here, but hey, who knows?” He annoyed me, for this meeting was taking up time that I needed to plan just for him to not tell me _why_ his people needed to know.

“Well then...Keith? You look like a Keith-”

“My name’s Robin”

“Robin! I’m Alushtas, by the way. You can go and tell your employers thanks, but no thanks, if they aren’t even gonna tell me why they need to know. Sorry, but you’re wasting my time.” He rushed toward me, but stopped abruptly as my knife brushed his neck.

“Fine. We are seeking out those who have potential-” “Potential? I’m the greatest thief around!” “-in thievery, and recruiting them. You don’t need to join, we just need to know how you work so we can figure out whether or not we want you.” I considered what he said, mulled it over in my head, and then told him, “Fine. What do you want me to tell you about them?” He leaned over, and said, “Everything. Tell me how you got them, why you stole them, and what they do. Everything.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**2**

  
  


“So. Everything, huh? Fine. This is gonna be a doozy, but I can deliver. Just for a little background, yes, I worked for Danshu for a while. He was good. He got me my first set of tools, helped me plan my first heist, taught me most of what I know. After that thing with the mayor, he had no choice but to kick me out. If I had stayed, I would have tarnished the guild’s name with it. So I moved on.” I broke off, for I was a bit uncomfortable.

“Say, is there a chair in here, or am I going to have to lean against this wall for the entirety of my tale?”

Robin said, “Oh, sorry. Let me go get one for you,” and left. He returned shortly with a chair, and I sat down, and continued my story.

“ _Like_ I was saying, I moved on. I did some freelance work, kinda became a thief for hire. Anyone who needed my work badly enough could get the connections necessary to get to me, like you did, but to hire me, rather than have me do a bard’s job for what I can only assume is no pay. Anyway, after a while, a different guild, whose name I won’t divulge for personal reasons, brought me in, and I stayed with them for a while. To be honest, pretty much the same thing as with Danshu occurred, except that nobody knew who I had stolen from. The point is, I worked for them for a bit, but after stealing these boots, they also kicked me out, not because I would tarnish the guild’s name, but because if the person I stole from found out it was me, and would wreak awful vengeance upon all the thieves, not just me.”

“Enough about the guilds, what can the boots do? Obviously they are pretty good, otherwise you wouldn’t have cared to steal them from someone who’s pretty powerful.”

“Well, well, well, Mr. Robin is intelligent after all. It is true, these boots would have to be ‘pretty good’ for it to be worth it, but it was. You see, and I’m telling you this because I trust you, I haven’t known you that long but I can tell you are someone who can be trusted with a secret, though it isn’t really much of a secret, it’s really just that I trust that you won’t steal them from me. If you tried, I’d have to kill you, and I’d hate to kill someone I’ve grown to trust so much. These boots link with one’s mind, and change how loud their sound is depending on what I want. If I want, I could make them really loud” - I demonstrated this by tapping my boot against the ground, causing a loud _crash_ to erupt from it - “Or I could make them silent.” I slammed my boot as hard as I could against the stones, but no sound emerged.

Robin raised his eyebrows. “Impressive.”

“I know, right? These are the perfect thieves’ boots. They can be used for stealth, but also intimidation if necessary, I suppose. Anyway, I haven’t even gotten to the best part, have I? I still need to explain how I got them. I’m not going to tell you who I stole them from, because, one, I don’t want you to tell them it was me, and two, the author, after finishing this, might decide that they want their story to coincide with another person’s story, and so telling you the name would make that harder.”

“What are you talking about?” Robin said, confused.

“Never mind. Hey, would you be willing to show me your face? It’s kinda disconcerting looking at a person that should, for all intents and purposes, have one. You seem overly mysterious, and it’s completely throwing off my vibe. “

“What? Oh, I had completely forgotten I was still wearing this.” He waved a hand over his face, and the darkness swirled away. Magic, rather than a magical mask, then. His face was fairly plain, with little fascinating things, except for his eyes. One swirled with darker colors, mixtures of purple, black, and deep, deep red. The other swirled with lighter colors, like yellow, orange, and white, and both seemed to have the idea of colors not known to any race, or at least my own. This was almost more disconcerting than the mask, though not enough for me to ask him to put it back on. When I asked about them, he flinched and simply responded, “Don’t ask about those.”

“Oooooookay then. Continuing with my story, there was an Important Figure coming to visit our guild, for reasons not shared with me.”

“Sorry for interrupting, but how did you capitalize speech?”

“What?”

“When you said ‘Important Figure’, you made it sound special, like it would be capitalized in writing.”

“Oh. Yeah, I do that sometimes to convey satire, or sometimes to make someone seem Important. It’s just something I do, doesn’t really have any impact on anything. Deal with it. _Back to the story, now_. So, this Important Figure was coming to our guild, for some meeting with the guild master, so we were all kinda excited, but also professional, you know? We weren’t the most well known guild, which is kinda the point, but not even in underworld circles. Having someone Important come was a big deal. When he got there, we were impressed with his - wait, I keep saying his. It could be a her, for all you know. Just because I use certain pronouns to fill that gap, doesn’t mean that person fits those pronouns. I could use ‘xie, hir, hirs’ pronouns, but that doesn’t mean they are agender, or non-binary, or what. I’m going to use she/her pronouns from now on, though. 

“ _As I was saying,_ she was very impressive and we were all kinds of impressed. We all had dinner, and she was at the guest of honor seat, which was usually empty. Throughout the time she spent there, I was surprised to hear no noises coming from her boots, which didn’t really make any sense, because the flooring typically was pretty echo-y and annoyingly loud, so I approached her after the meal. She told me about the magical properties of them, but was very elusive about where she got them, which I suppose is fair.

“We have kind of a thieve’s code, at least in our guild, but I’m pretty sure that it is implemented in most, that we don’t steal from each other, but, as she was an outsider, she was not off-limits, and therefore I was surprised at how much she divulged. I decided that I needed to get those boots. She did not stay in the guild, but at a fancy hotel a couple streets over. I crept out that night, to scope out her quarters. I like to move across rooftops usually, since the buildings are tall enough, and at night I can become practically invisible when I wear my darkest clothing. When I had discovered which room she was staying in and looked in through the window, I saw that she had lights on, which was strange. 

At the stroke of midnight, I quietly climbed up the building to the second story, and carefully looked through her window. I saw that she was laying in bed awake, and, rather than quickly duck down, whose sudden motion would’ve probably brought her to the window, I slowly moved my head back. 

At about two in the morning, her light went out, and I looked back in. She was in bed, falling asleep, and my darkvision allowed me to view the room fairly similarly to daytime, albeit in black and white. I saw that she kept her boots in her bathroom, which was connected to the bedroom, though I could only imagine what kinds of defense she used. Because of the brightness of the light, and the consistency of it, I knew she had at least some magic, rather than a candle or lantern. Therefore, she could have any kind of protection from intrusion that could not easily be seen, though such an experienced thief as myself knew certain things to look for.

I saw the tell-tale tail of a rat beneath her bed, and the fact that there was a rat in such a fancy room, and that it was just sitting there, rather than moving around, made me assume that it was not a normal rat. I couldn’t know exactly what kind of enchantments had been placed upon it, but I knew to be careful around it. I also noticed a subtle line of magical dust that was obviously enchanted to sound an alarm when crossed, so I needed to keep that in mind when planning my burglary. Other than that, either the alarms were too well hidden, or there were no others, which I doubted, because having only two defenses seemed either like overconfidence, or bad writing from an author that doesn’t know what magical defenses look like. Oh, after she told me about her boots, I made sure to get a good look at them, to the point where I could pretty easily recreate them in my head. 

The next day, I went to a cobbler I know, and pulled in a favor from a while back. He made an exact copy of the boots, and because he’s awesome, he made them sound absorbent, so they would be quieter, but not silent. I also got the other materials I needed, such as rope, stuff to neutralize the magical threats, and a couple other magic detectors for other magical threats. It was time to do the thing.

That night, I again waited until about half an hour after she went to bed and turned off her light. I wore the new boots there, so that I didn’t have to carry them around. I climbed up to her window again, (I keep saying window. Glass is like, pretty expensive, and the moonlight is so pretty, most people don’t use glass but just have open spaces) and carefully crept through the window. I took the Sleep Charm, and tossed it at the rat, which kinda absorbed it, which I assumed is how it was supposed to work. 

I used the other detectors to search for magic, but couldn’t find any that I didn’t already know about. I slowly walked toward the bathroom, trying not to make any noise. I just realized, I didn’t tell you where the alarm magic was, did I? There was one line by the door, and another near the bathroom door. And yes, I can see you wondering, I did cover my face and mop of hair with a hood, I’m not an idiot. 

As I got closer to the bathroom and the line, I took out my special device. It looked like a file, kinda, because it was fairly long and had one side narrowed to almost a point, so it could get under things. It was special because magic couldn’t detect it, so it could disturb the line without activating it. And no, I couldn’t just _step_ over it, it was an alarm that was designed to prevent any kind of movement over it. I scraped at it and moved enough out of the way so that I could easily bypass it, and then went into the bathroom, where I felt a sharp point dig into my back.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**3**

‘Oh, so you thought you could steal from me and get away with it?’ she asked, amused.

‘Well, I had to try,’ I replied, wary of her blade and modulating my voice so that it wasn’t immediately obvious who I was. ‘And also, how did you notice me? I disabled your alarm, put your pet to sleep, was as quiet as a mouse, probably quieter, and checked for other magic.’

‘Ah, can a person have her secrets?’ she said.

I said, rashfully, ‘I would prefer to know, so that if I try to burgle someone else like you, I know what else to disable.’ She laughed, and simply said, “‘There is magic in this world that simple thieves couldn’t detect without a mage on their side.

‘But, as I am in a good mood, and you have amused me, I shall let you go, so long as you never try to take something from me again’

I plainly replied, ‘Well okay, then.’

She withdrew her dagger, and gestured to the window. ‘You’d best be leaving now,’ she said, sheathing the small weapon.

‘Okay,’ I said, as I climbed out the window. I flipped off and landed carefully on the window ledge below, almost falling off in the process. I climbed the rest of the way down, and promptly ran back to the guild, in a very roundabout manner, just in case someone noticed me.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Robin said. “If you promised her that you would never take something from her again, how did you get those boots?”

“Oh, didn’t I say? I had set the whole thing up. I knew about her alarm, and so deactivated it before switching out the boots, and I knew about how she would react, I am a very good judge of people, so I had put the line back in order so that it would seem undisturbed, though I couldn’t do anything about the rat. That thing was definitely out. Anyway, I reactivated the silent alarm, and redid the whole thing. She had no idea what I had done, and still might not. It was brilliantly done, if i do say so myself.”

“That _is_ impressive. But why did you redo the whole thing, if you hadn’t been caught the first time?”

“And that, my dear little bird, is where we can truly see that I am cleverer than you. If I had simply switched the boots and left, she would’ve known it was me once she found out that it wasn’t the correct ones, for I was the only one to ask about them. It is doubtless that she knows it was I who came to steal them, but since she came in and found me _trying_ to steal them, but evidently failing, and she knows a thieve’s word is actually pretty good, especially to other thieves, which she clearly was, she won’t think it was I who stole them, but someone else after my visit. Therefore, it is unlikely she will come after me, I have the boots, and I didn’t break my word because I had stolen from her previously, but have not since. Win-win-win.”

“Okay, I’m not going to lie, that _is_ impressive. But never call me a little bird again.”

“Ooh, not ready for the pet names yet? That’s a shame, I thought we had something here. I thought we bonded while I told you my story. You have trustworthy, friendly eyes. I thought we had moved past the ‘not enemies but not friends either’ phase and into the ‘we have nicknames and such for each other’ phase. I am sad now.”

Robin chuckled. “You certainly are a special one. I’ll let them know.”

“Hey, I’d assume you are also a thief?”

“Yeah, but not as much as of late. Right now I’m kinda the recruiter, like I’m doing with you.”

I thought about it a moment, and then said, “Hey, how would you like to work with me on a job? Again, I feel like we’ve bonded, and even if you don’t, I want our relationship to be at least friendly, if not more.”

“Hmmm, I’ll have to consider that. This guild _does_ allow its members to do their own work, as long as they know and ‘okay’ it. Sounds good. And if you want, you’re pretty much guaranteed a place here, judging from what I’ve heard from you. And you show character, you show a sense of humor. Too many thieves are gruff and such, but you run your mouth off when you think you should, and sometimes when you don’t, from my understanding.” 

I smiled and said, “True enough. So, there’s a mage with a, _surprise_ , magical staff. That staff contains a great power, which, to be honest, I want. What do you say?”

Robin thought about it, considered it, everything that a good thief would do when the possibility of stealing something happens.

“Sure,” he said, “as long as we work as partners, and not one as below the other.”

I smiled. This was going to be _fun_.


End file.
